Fifth page in Google may not be a huge thing but is significant progress since the previous time. Important thing to mention is that in addition to the widget bait we got few links from forum signature, few links from one article and a link from Hubpages hub. So it’s not the widget alone, but good luck ranking for such a keyword without it.

Now the next step includes wiring one more article and maybe making one more hub and squidoo page. Since this is very unlikely to give significant improvement, we’ll plan the next widget targeting the same page. Stay tuned.

There is no PR update yet, but 10 days after releasing the investment calculator plugin the first results can be seen.

Searches for “investment calculator plugin”, “investment calculator wordpress”, “investment calculator wordpress plugin” and “investment calculator wp” all rank sharkinvestor.com on the first place in Google. For most of the key phrases we get also the target page - http://sharkinvestor.com/investment-calculator/ - ranked as a sub-result of the plugin page. Yahoo and Live are pathetic and not only rank the domain lower, but also return completely irrelevant pages from it. I am not a fan of Google’s monopoly but it clearly shows to be much better in this experiment so far.

Now, the results for the above phrases are great, but our target is to rank for “investment calculator”. Of course I don’t expect that to happen only with one widgetbait, but there is already some success: the right page ranks in Google currently at 195th place (page 19 of the results). Being in page 19 in practice is like being no ranked at all, but we look for the fundamental effect and it is quite good. From now on, we’ll do some standard linking to see how much the combination of both will help.

We’ll publish few articles, will get few forum signature links and few links from partner sites. I’ll ensure one PR 6 link from the FirstTimer’s page - I’ll post something like “Other plugins from the author”.

We’ll follow the result after a month and if it is still not good enough, it will be a time for the heavy guns - another widgetbait for the same page.

1. Ajax does not declare functions

If you hope to declare functions in Ajax loaded javascripts and call them during execution time you’ll get an unpleasant surprise. It does not work. You need to declare your functions in the loaded page, not in the ajax response. However if you want to call existing functions in your ajax-generated code, no worries, go ahead.

2. IE caches GET requests

Internet Explorer knows how to cache the ajax response and is not afraid to do it. In fact it loves cache so much that you won’t be able to use the dynamic effect of Ajax call to the database if you send your request by GET. If your ajax calls the database, stupid IE keeps returning cached data even if you refresh the entire page.

Solution: Use POST calls. I know it’s slower, but how does it matter when GET does not work well?

3. Ajax does not upload files

If you have an ajax loaded page and you want to include a file upload field in it, I have “great” news for you: it does not work. What, is it not news? Poor you, you have already realized one of the ugliest limitations of ajax. Because of it, the developers need to all kind of gimmicks or use third party scripts with hidden iframes to make file upload works. That’s far away of web standards, user friendly code and search engines.

Hey, if all your users are geeks who browse with Firefox and like to poke config files, you can use this idea. Cool, eh?

4. Ajax causes memory leaks

See here.

5.  How To Make Back/Forward Buttons Work On Ajax Page?

No, this is not a rhetorical question, I am really asking you how. Because I don’t know. Wait, I asked Google and he said this. Does it look simple to you?

Ajax Sucks For SEO

If all you care is to make fancy website, go ahead, use ajax everywhere. If you partner with popular websites or have big bucks for advertising, you’ll have no problems. What, do you say you are on a budget and hope to get visitors from the search engines? Forget either about Ajax or about Google.

Do you know more things that Ajax makes to help you look dumb? Go ahead, share them.

P.S. No, I am not saying don’t use ajax. I’m just pointing few things that suck.

The Investment Calculator Case Study

When I created FirstTimer I did not target any specific search engine optimization benefits. Now it’s time for a more focused widgetbait effort and for it we picked the site which first started using FirstTimer as well - http://sharkinvestor.com.

The task will be to optimize this investment calculator for exactly the same phrase - investment calculator. The phrase is competitive but not so much that it would be a dead cause. I will limit other SEO to minimum and use mostly the worpress plugin for this study.

Currently sharkinvestor.com does not rank at all for the keyphrase, so it will be quite interested if something will happen in the next few months. As a side effect of course we will be watching the direct traffic which will come from the widgetbait and the bounce rates.

There is a big chance that the plugin page will rank better for “investment calculator” rather than the page which we want to rank (the live installed calculator). This is also something which is worth thinking about once I get any results.

Zzzzzzzzzz….

Next time when you make your company or personal website spend less time thinking about that rounded blue corner that no one will notice and put some effort to make the entire site more interesting. Because, you know, there are few other billions websites struggling for your visitor’s attention. She does not care about you or your company, she cares about herself.

Message your visitor, not your ego and your site may just become a little bit less boring.

Enjoy the plugin here.

The Problem

Well to be frank, the spam protection described in the previous post works at 100% already in several sites. But in theory if you use that tactic the spammers can easily go around it. They can build a script especially for your site which to check the value in your javascript function and place it in the hidden field.

Let’s make things better

Let’s involve some Ajax to make the spammer’s life even harder. What if instead of using a hardcoded value for the hidden field, you use a key/value combination from a database. When loading your web form, retrieve a single key/value pair from the database. Put the $key in $_SESSION so you have it after submit. Use the key for an ajax function like this (for easy ajax I use Scripaculous):

new Ajax.Request(”?action=ajax_retrieve_value.php”
{
method:’post’,
parameters: {ajaxkey: ‘<?=$key?>’},
onSuccess: function(transport)
{
var response = transport.responseText || “no response text”;
$(’hidden_field’).value=response;
}
});

The script ajax_retrieve_value.php will retrieve the value corresponding to the key and the javascript function places it in the hidden field.

On submitting the form all you need to do is to run another query and see if the key which is in $_SESSION corresponds to the value coming from the hidden field.

If your ajax_retrieve_value.php checks $_SERVER[REMOTE_ADDR] and allow only the IP of your server, you are spam-proof. Without Captcha at all.

Who knows why (seriously, do you know WHY?) groups of PHP developers keep working on PHP template engines which are supposed to help separating the program logic from the design. One good sample of such useless effort is Smarty.

So Why Smarty Is Evil?

What exactly is Smarty and the similar template engines doing and why is it so bad for your programs to use them? Let me just shoot few reasons:

• Adding one more language to learn. Smarty has its own language which has to be used in the templates whenever you need control flow structures etc. How exactly is this better than using PHP itself?
• Putting presentation code in your logic. They claim to avoid that and at the same time require you to “load” all the variables before you can use them in the template. The absurdic $smarty->assign may take more lines in your code than you need for the program logic.
• Messing Javascripts. Some of the template engines (you guesses it, Smarty again!) don’t let you write normal javascript code in the templates because that crashes their own parser. How convenient!

It’s hard to believe, but most programmers would visit Why Use Smarty page and take everything said there for real. However I prefer to think myself:

“Designers can’t break application code. They can mess with the templates all they want, but the code stays intact. The code will be tighter, more secure and easier to maintain.”

- Really? Designers can break the application code, because the templates (view layer if you use MVC) contain logic themselves. In no way the template engines protect you from that

“With presentation on its own layer, designers can modify or completely redesign it from scratch, all without intervention from the programmer”

- Big fat lie. The programmer needs to load all variables, prepare arrays and do presentation related work in the controller layer. The presentation is not on its own layer so the designers often need the programmer’s help.

“Programmers aren’t messing with templates. They can go about maintaining the application code, changing the way content is acquired, making new business rules, etc. without disturbing the presentation layer.”

- See all the points aboe. The programmers do mess with the templates.

“Templates are a close representation of what the final output will be, which is an intuitive approach. Designers don’t care how the content got to the template. If you have extraneous data in the template such as an SQL statement, this opens the risk of breaking application code by accidental deletion or alteration by the designer.”

- If the programmer puts SQL statement in their view layer, then they simply need some education. Using simple PHP templates you can and should keep all the logic away from the presentation layer. You don’t need Smarty, Fast templates or similar misconceptions.

So How Do You Go Without Template Engines?

PHP is template language itself. You don’t need another one. Just separate your logic from your presentation. Keep your logic in a php script, then your presentation in HTML template. When you need control flow in the HTML file, just use pieces of PHP code.  It’s really as simple as that. In your PHP script you can use include  or require to display the template. All the variables which are in the scope of the script will be available in the template as well. No loading required, no messy presentation code in the controller layer.

If you need samples, just let me know (hint, use the comment option).

There are many approaches, but surprisingly most people go with one - blatant self promotion. I guess I won’t surprise you if I told you self promotion and hype no longer work.

There are several well known online marketing “gurus” who own huge mailing lists and send hyped emails to their subscribers on regular basis. Guys like Ewen Chia and Mike Filsame do make huge sales and profits although all they sell is crap and their promotional methods are close to spam.

It won’t work for you. Guaranteed.

If you think you can do like them and sell a lot, sorry to tell you - you won’t. There are many reasons why these guys can sell using hype - they have reputation, they have huge email lists and their potential customers are desperate newbies in the “make money online” market. Unless you have the same, you won’t have any success.

If you are a freelancer or small business owner targeting prospects with above average intelligence, you should try different approach.

People want genuine suppliers.

No matter if you sell copywriting services, software consultations, e-books or potatoes - unless you are a very well known name, most buyers want to know they deal with credible person.

How much do you add to your credibility when you claim being the best (or your product being the best), giving the best price, offering outrageous money back guarantees or monkey “bonuses”?

I’ve seen freelancers who bid on $50 project and claim to be a company with 200 designers and developers. Imagine if someone believes them.

Next time when selling your skills or products you can raise your credibility along with the sales process just by being honest. Saying that you have no experience with something, explaining that your resources are limited to X and Y and being upfront about why you are interested in the deal and why is your offer exactly that is unlikely to push your buyer away. It will make them feel they work with real and genuine person.

“Why” is the most important question in business and “because” is the answer that will make you close that deal if you are honest. Try to cheat and you just lost the buyer forever.

A little story…

Some time ago I worked with a friend on a site about high yield investments. We had a small section recommending investment opportunities to the readers usually having referral links. Once he smelled something phishy with the top performing investment program we decided to add a warning. The warning was saying something like “We have reasons to doubt in this program. We advice you to think carefully before investing and if you have large funds in it, better get some money out”.

After releasing the warning we expected most people would withdraw their money and no new investments will go in. Instead of that the investments and commissions doubled.

Makes no sense? Think again. People value honesty. But no, it is not that they were rewarding us for being noble. Here is what one of them told us:

“You are warning us about potential problems. So you are honest. If there were very serious problems, you would warn us to get out. So this opportunity should still be good”.

I would guess that even without talking to anyone, just by putting myself in their shoes. Do that more often and you can change not only your business, but your personal life too. Too bad empathy is not taught at school.

Honesty sells. Empathy helps you know when, why and how much honest to be.

By 1914 the new company locations included Antwerp, London, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Tokyo, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and Sydney. A century after its founding this company became a multi billion dollar business with annual revenue of more than $50 billion. Today this business server more than 920 million customers and has more than 125,000 employees.

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